


the space between (the lies we tell)

by impertinences



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adlock, BDSM, F/M, Great Hiatus, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Jealousy, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 02:22:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10452819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impertinences/pseuds/impertinences
Summary: I'm married, Mr. Holmes. – IA(Later, he will realize that he is, in this moment, waiting for the fall. He is bracing himself above the precipice.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to imagine the various ways Irene and Sherlock would stay in touch and possibly meet after "A Scandal in Belgravia" but before season 4 (during the great hiatus), and this was the result of those imaginings. Enjoy!

_I'm married, Mr. Holmes_. – IA

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Tuesday.

The air in 221B is thick, hazy with the humdrum calm of the day. Sherlock, fighting the desire for a cigarette, makes himself still.

There’s files for an unsolved case on John’s desk with a rough draft of the upcoming blog post open on his laptop. But John takes advantage of the mild weather and brings Rosie to the park. Mrs. Hudson leaves tea and biscuits - one too sweet and the other too buttery - in the sitting room. Sherlock lets them turn cold and stale, his eyes and ears on the open window and the listless, occasional billowing of the curtains. Traffic hums periodically outside, the world moving in its daily routines.

(Later, he will realize that he is, in this moment, waiting for the fall. He is bracing himself above the precipice.)

His phone moans.

 

 

 

 

 

Irene sends a picture as evidence. Her nails are blunt and square, the polish a flawless red that matches the lipstick she’s prone to wearing or the backs of her thin stiletto heels. On her left hand, on the fourth finger, there's a ring with a diamond. But the world is full of such rings and pictures are hardly the same as perspective, so Sherlock only raises an eyebrow; he does not answer.

She continues anyway, goading, as is her specialty.

 _Ask your brother if you don't believe me. We still have a few friends in the same circle_. – IA  
_Marriages are the new disguises. Guess whose idea?_ – IA  
_Should we celebrate with dinner?_ \- IA

(He hasn’t fallen yet. He’s still bracing.)

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday’s unfinished case turns into Wednesday’s and Thursday’s until it takes them to Liverpool. There’s a dead aunt, a missing cat, long-lost love letters in an open attic trunk, and a steak knife.

It’s three days of mundane mystery (Sherlock bickering with local police, insulting relatives of the deceased, wearing the famous hunting hat to shield cameras, and John enjoying the attractions: the dock, the Beatles exhibit, the World Museum). Sherlock provides running commentary of nearly every sight they see, insulting tour guides and couriers, while John bites down his laughter and pointedly elbows his friend’s side or makes apologies to the polite locals. When he thinks Sherlock isn’t looking, John takes discreet photos with his phone. Most of the pictures are of the detective’s shoulders and dark, turned-away head, an attraction in the background, maybe the side of Sherlock’s face caught haphazardly as they move from one exhibit to the next. Sherlock wouldn’t understand the need to record the visit – it’s only Liverpool, after all, a city both men have been to before – but John has the luxury of documenting the commonplace now that he has a family. The pictures are evidence for Mary’s scrapbook and the life he will tell Rosie once she’s learned to associate pictures with stories and the sound of her father’s voice.

John calls Mary every night after they’ve returned to the privacy of their modest hotel room. Sometimes he hands the phone to Sherlock – never at his request, always by Mary’s demand – and there’s a quaint intimacy to the laughter Mary gives Sherlock, to their forged family dynamics. He doesn’t say it, but John thinks their makeshift threesome is tinged in sadness. This isn’t Sherlock’s wife, it isn’t his child; he’s on the periphery, a solitary position of his choosing.

So when Sherlock’s phone buzzes for the fourth time in half an hour at supper (the ringer placed suspiciously on silent), John continues to read the evening newspaper. He doesn’t ask questions or pass judgements.

“Recent developments,” Sherlock says after a moment, standing from the kitchen nook to grab his coat from the back of the door.

“Should I come?” John asks, already knowing the answer.

“Hardly necessary. Back by morning.” Sherlock feigns nonchalance and closes the door behind him too loudly.

(Sherlock takes the plunge, the step off the cliff.)   

 

 

 

 

 

 _Usually men have the decency to call when coincidentally visiting the same city as their dominatrix_. – IA  
_If I was someone else, I would be angry_. – IA  
_Are you enjoying your silence?_ – IA  
_I'm seeing an opera at the Empire. Very dull. Thinking of you_. – IA

 

 

 

 

 

In 1875, Carmen had shocked and scandalized audiences; in 2015, the opera is boring. Irene appreciates the setting, however, and its appropriate theatric atmosphere. She understands the importance of mood, as does her client, because mood is psychology. So while a fiery gypsy seduces a naïve soldier and descends into immorality, they use a private box and Irene instructs him in the contrasting modes of decorum and debauchery.

She tangles a hand, bored, in his hair. He’s a golden boy, this client of hers, young and popular and rich. He has a wife and a child, a reputation, a legacy wrapped in the weight of a good name. He’s very polite, as they all are, but he hasn’t paid for her rapier wit or her charm. He wants punishment, which is good because she is not a kind woman – even in plunging, deep emerald silk and elegant pearls, she is severe. She uses her hands to chastise him, the noise silenced by the swell of the orchestra and the singers, while he presses his humble mouth to the tips of her heels, her ankles, the lean stretch of her calf.

He doesn’t fuck her. A box is only so private, after all, and clients rarely want the release sex can provide (something society consistently fails to understand). He wants to be made to apologize, to be seduced by her strictness, by the desire to please. Still, Irene washes her hands in the bathroom before leaving, spritzes a floral perfume on her collarbone, and adjusts the fall of her hair, cleaning away the evening’s business.

She waits in the lobby for a taxi, the collar of her coat turned up, absently twisting her wedding ring. An usher bumps her shoulder in passing, apologizes, and takes a moment to drink her in with his eyes.

Irene smiles at him, direct, aware of how men mistakenly view her as meat, and raises an eyebrow in question.

“Did you and your husband enjoy the show, ma’am?”

“My husband is at home.”

“It’s a cold night to be alone at the theater.”

“What makes you assume I’m alone?” She smiles again, and the usher has the good grace to dip his eyes before returning to his work.

When she slips into her taxi, she feels a bit like Carmen herself, thinking love is a rebel bird. 

 

 

 

 

 

She is already inside of her hotel room and hanging her coat in the closet when she registers the subtle difference in the air. There doesn't seem enough distractors - the quiet voices from the telly, the darkness of the room sliced through with light, the air hot from the over-worked, humming heating unit - for her to have missed him. It all suddenly seems apparent, the many lingering signs of Sherlock: a splash of tobacco in the air. The faint smell of fabric softener and the older, more threadbare smell of his favorite tweed coat. The hint of aftershave. She shields her amusement in annoyance.

Irene frowns, her face serious, but she does not turn. One hand lingers on her coat's shoulder. She can feel the metal of the hanger beneath it. Her absence, the cumulative weight of all the distances between them, dangles in the air, a deafening silence that neither knows how to stifle with words. It's like a snapshot from the old movies, the black-and-white scene where the femme fatale is finally cornered by the brilliant detective. The moment thick with possibility, the audience uncertain whom to route for or how to feel. 

"You broke the rules," Sherlock says from her left, bringing action to the scene. He is casually draped in the armchair by the glass wall of windows overlooking the city.

"Nothing surprising there, Mr. Holmes,” Irene murmurs, tongue-in-cheek, syllables clipped. She stands on one foot to remove a heel, stepping out of the other on her way towards him. He rises at her approach – casual, familiar as a routine dance – and when she turns her back, lifting her hair from her neck, his fingers move to the chain of pearls around her throat, deftly opening the tiny silver clasp. They slip into his palm, a white beaded rope of wealth.

"Which transgression are you referencing?" she asks.

"All of them. Tell me, what does your husband think of your profession?"

"Why do you care? Are you jealous?"

"Mmm, no. But I thought you liked having the upper hand, and marriage is such a bore."

“How would you know? Have you tried it?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, quick, and brushes his fingers across her exposed neck. “Not for me I’m afraid. I prefer less traditional pursuits.”

Irene laughs, a hint of her unkindness there, and lets her hair fall. She turns to face him, her hand open. “Silly, posh boy. You're just business. Like my work."

He places the pearls in her palm; they’re warm from where he’s been clutching them. He has a half-smirk twisting the corner of his mouth, his eyes bright in their blueness, and everything about the moment highlights the cut of his cheeks. Irene wants to run her fingers across his face and feel the angles of his skin again. She's starting to forget how he, like her, is more hard than soft, how they’re matched in their sharpness, that each of their turns and ripostes brings them closer to the proverbial edge.

“I see. So this is between colleagues.”

“Purely professional.”

He makes a noise like a hum and crawls his fingers from her hand to the inside of her wrist, ghosting over the blue veins beneath the thin stretch of skin, feeling the bump of bone on the other side with his thumb. She breathes in slowly – a quiver that exposes her – and he bridges the gap of their bodies, dipping his head down, circling an arm fully around her waist (warm pressure above her hip, above the silk of her dress). He catches her mouth with his.

In Karachi, he had been less sure, less confident, but this is a new Holmes: more experienced in the game they play. 

 “What’s his name?” Sherlock whispers against her mouth, pushing his hands into her hair, tangling the loose curls between his fingers.

She tsks at him, a sound that becomes a shiver in her throat when he starts to pull.  “Oh, come now, Mr. Holmes, you know a secret's worth is only determined by the people it must be kept from.”

 “And you know I rarely ask a question I don’t already have the answer to.”

“He calls me Vanessa.”

Slower now, he moves his mouth across her pointed jaw, up to where he can scrape his teeth over her earlobe. There’s a hundred nerve endings there and when he whispers, his voice is slick as molasses, low and cool against the side of her face. “I didn’t ask that. What else doesn’t he know? Does he think you’re American?”

 “I am American.” Irene changes accents effortlessly, the elongated vowels of British posh melting into clipped, nasal American pronunciation.

Sherlock barks a laugh, short and almost bitter. There’s a caustic way to how he grabs her waist again, fisting her expensive silk.

Caustic and demanding. Entitled.

She shoves a hand against his chest, something he did not expect, and he loses his footing, stumbles back a step. “Careful now, Mr. Holmes. You’re indulging.”

Sherlock’s smile is boyish, but he places a hand over his heart in deference, lowering his dark head of curls. “I have second child syndrome. I’m insolent. By all means, correct me Miss Adler.”

She does.

 

 

 

 

 

After, he watches her, his naked back to the headboard and the blankets pooled around his lap.

Irene looks blue in the light, her skin paler than he remembers, the white of snow birds turned ethereal by the glow of cheap gas lamps. There's a touch of the old world in this hotel that flatters her. She’s busying herself with brushing her hair and twisting it up. Her fingers are careful, precise, slipping pearl-studded bobby pins into her curls until her neck is exposed and each strand is perfectly in place. She takes a bottle of perfume from her purse and sprays her wrists. She leans closer towards the vanity mirror to apply a thin sweep of lipstick across her mouth. This is her routine, her donning of customary armor, the face she creates for the world. 

She lets him see it. 

She’s telling him goodbye.

There’s something of a dreamer in Sherlock – it’s why he composes with ease and has an ear for subtlety, why he can be the builder of such a detailed Aristotelian palace, a place of echoes and shadows. He feels as though he’s dreaming now. Irene is slipping into her heels, pulling her coat from the closet, finding her passport and plane ticket from her purse. She looks different in his reality – not worse, or better - then how his mind sometimes projected her. He would see her in his subconscious - a half-shadow in an Arabic city, fashion always too modern for Shahrazad’s famous setting, or she would be trapped beneath ashen skies, hair windswept and the collar of her coat turned up, the moors as their background. His dreams make them into archetypes - he the reluctant Romantic hero, she the distressed damsel. 

(They are liquid copper dreams. They never fit. His mind places them in the wrong eras, the wrong stories, the wrong roles. He is not so good, and she is not so weak.) 

Now, he wants to ask her how she dreams of him, if she dreams at all, in New York, Berlin, or Moscow - all those cities she flies to, takes refuge in. All those places that are not London and Baker Street. She looks too sharp for such sentiment, but Irene is always more willing to play with her heart, to expose herself, if the reward is worth the risk.

If he asks, she might answer.

He doesn’t.

Because the truth is: they give themselves to one another in pieces, bit by bit, and now their time is up.

 

 

 

 

 

“Long night?” John asks, emerging from the bathroom to find Sherlock putting the kettle on. He rubs the stubble on his jaw, yawning.

“Tedious at best.”

John makes a noncommittal noise, still thick with sleep, and sits at the nook.

“Train’s at noon,” he says as a reminder, noticing Sherlock’s still in his coat and shoes from the night before. “I’m ready to get back. You should pack.”

Sherlock’s phone buzzes from his pocket.

He waits for John to grab the morning newspaper and a jellied biscuit before reaching into his coat. There’s a string of pearls next to his phone.

 

 

 

 

 

_Till next time, Mr. Holmes. – IA_

 

 

 

 


End file.
